


Puppets

by NonPlayerChar



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mistaken Identity, None of the abuse will be gone into detail, Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27909364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NonPlayerChar/pseuds/NonPlayerChar
Summary: Coil was more cautious. Regent had more power. Armsmaster feels more guilt. Lisa and Taylor will never quite feel the same.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 118





	1. Chapter 1

A simple shifting of priorities, that's all. That's all it takes.

Armsmaster swings his halberd, clean and true, and it connects solidly with the teenage master, knocking a now unconscious Regent onto the floor of the Forsberg Gallery. While Tattletales power was annoying (dangerous), Regent presented a more immediate threat to the civilians and to his teammates, so he opts to remove him from play. 

What he doesn't expect (and what stops his heart) is when Tattletale and Skitter (he doesn't feel guilty he doesn't) collapse, folding to the floor in a complete surrender to gravity.

Like puppets with their strings cut. 

Puppets.

Oh, god. 

(How much of joining the Undersider's had been Skitter's idea?) 

To his continued surprise, Grue and B- Hellhound take a step back. He can't see either of their faces due to their masks, but their body language is screaming shock.

"...he didn't." Grue speaks first. "Oh Jesus Christ, you didn't." 

It's Skitter who moves first, limbs twitching. None of them react-- they're all frozen in place by the enormity of what they're witnessing. They say nothing while she shambles over to the unconscious form of Regent, although the heroes do raise their weapons, in case Regent's power was one that lingered after- 

"No!" Grue screams, a flood of darkness erupting from his hand. At the same moment, Velocity dashes forwards, a blur.

It's too late.

The knife sinks cleanly into Regent's exposed throat.

Grue’s darkness fades after a moment, revealing a distinct lack of either him or Hellhound, and a silent crowd watches as the girl who carved out Lungs eyes cries softly while attempting to perform CPR on her… Teammate? He’s not sure anymore. (He cannot be sure of anything anymore. Least of all his own role in this.)

It’s not working, that much is obvious. Skitters motions are still awkward and sudden, like a baby learning to move (How many days, how many weeks under a masters control would it take, before something like that would set in?) and there’s no concrete rhythm to the pulses she’s attempting. Before he can move, she does, rolling from Tattletales side as well as she can, hand trying to hold onto her still bloody knife, although her pinky and middle finger don’t seem to be reacting how she wants them to. She twitches and shivers but otherwise stays dreadfully still; like a metronome with a few broken gears. 

Skitter looks around herself, or tries to, one more time, the face of her mask focusing on Regent’s corpse for just a moment, before collapsing to the ground. And with her fall, the spell of silence and shock is broken; the audience begins to murmur— or to shout. He has to act quickly. They need to do this right. 

“If you’re not a member of the Protectorate or the PRT, please exit the building, this is now an active crime scene!” He barks, drumming up a facsimile of confidence in his voice. In the end, all people want to feel is reassured that the situation is under control. “You can see three exits from this room, the one on the south wall leads to the elevators, and the east and west exit to staircases, please proceed in a calm orderly fashion.”

To his surprise, this actually works, and soon the room is empty, save for him, his team, two supervillains (Were they supervillains? Had they ever been? How long had they been under Regents control?) and a few members of the PRT. 

“Sir?” Velocity asks, voice as uncertain as his own heart. “What do we do?” Armsmaster continues to stare at the unconscious bodies of the teenagers even as the PRT members move to check pulses and prepare them for transport. 

“I have no idea.” He answers, and it’s the most truthful thing he’s said all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!  
> This is the first fanfic I've ever written, or at least ever published, and TSK has helped me with it so much that it's only fair for him to also get an author slot too.  
> My plan is to update every other Saturday!


	2. Chapter 2

Director Piggot’s office was never a comfortable place for Carlos. He was rarely called there for a good reason, and he didn’t know that any of his teammates had ever been called there for a good reason. He wasn’t totally sure why Armsmaster had involved him in this meeting, but he had a pretty good idea, and he knew he would find out soon enough.

The door slammed as the woman he thought of as his boss walked in, around the desk, and sat down. “What. Happened.”

Armsmaster cleared his throat. “At approximately seven thirty PM, the Undersiders broke into the Forsberg Gallery through an upper story window and into the Gala. After a brief exchange of words, I elected to attack Regent, seeing him as the largest threat I could deal with quickly. He was knocked out, and Tattletale and Skitter fell to the ground. Skitter then stabbed Regent to death in the resulting confusion, and then Grue and Hellhound escaped, while Skitter remained behind to perform CPR on Tattletale until a PRT agent took over, and she blacked out.”

The Director motioned for him to continue, her face nearly iron in composition, unyielding in fury. . “Afterwards, we found that neither of them was breathing properly, and their hearts had irregular rhythms, so they were brought back to base for medical treatment. Skitter is showing signs of recovery, but Tattletale has shown no signs of being able to live without mechanical assistance.”

Director Piggot brought her fingers to the sides of her head for a moment before sighing. “Once one of them can speak, I want to know how long this has been going on. I want to know if either of them were ever actually villains, or just unfortunate capes in the wrong place at the wrong time. If either of them were independent heroes who ran into the Undersiders at the wrong moment or anything similar. If we can salvage this and get two capes out of the deal, I want them.” She shifted, looking at Carlos, “Aegis, your team fought them at the bank, do you think they were mastered then?”

I think that it’s a lot easier to believe someone got mastered into shoving bugs down my best friend’s throat instead of wanting to do that to him of her own will.

“I don’t know ma’am,” he decided to say instead. “You’d have to talk to New Wave. Skitter and Tattletale were inside of the bank for the whole fight, the only heroes they saw were Panacea and Glory Girl.”

She grimaced, and then nodded. “Alright, for now, we’re assuming they’re villains until we have more information. Dismissed.”

“Actually Ma’am,” Armsmaster said as she turned to face her computer, “at least one of them was an independent hero first.”

Director Piggot’s face whipped back in Armsmasters direction, and Carlos couldn’t help but follow suit. He looked almost nervous, even though his expression hadn’t changed from when he had started his report. “Explain.”

“On April tenth, when I captured Lung, it was only after Skitter had nearly beaten him. She was working as an independent hero, and heard Lung mention a plan to kill children, who were apparently the Undersiders. They approached her offering membership, but fled as I was arriving. Her name and actions went unreported for fear of reprisal from the ABB.”

Piggot stares at Armsmaster, and Carlos can see his heart sink all the way into his stomach, deep in the churning acid.

It’s the beeping that wakes her. She tries to sit up, and halfway succeeds before she crashes back down, muscles unused to autonomy. 

There’s a mumbling noise beside her, someone speaking. She’s not listening, she’s trying to move again, one motion after another, making sure she still can. It’s jerky, it’s not going right. She didn’t think it had been that long, but she can’t quite remember how to make her hand grab at the thing covering her face, and so is just slapping against it repeatedly.

The mumbling gets louder, and she feels something touching the side of her head. She tries to jerk away, but ends up twisting her spin, eliciting a cry of pain that she hasn’t been able to make for a long time. 

“Yeah, looks like her mask had bunched her hair up in her ears, hey, can you hear us?” The mumbling asks, though to be fair, it’s far less of a mumble now. 

“Eeyeh-hh”

“Eese”

“Yeh-suh” she says, and almost cries. 

“Good, I have to call someone, I’ll be right back.” Says the mumble, and a heavy clomping fades away.

She finally takes the time to open her eyes. After pulling her eyebrows up a few times, she manages to take her eyelids with them, and is greeted by an orange tinted perspective on the world. She’s sitting up at a strange angle, in a white bed, with white walls surrounding her. There’s a thin tube leading from her throat to some pumping machine, and another hooked up to some wires leading to her heart. She can feel. Something. Some things stuck to her scalp, and there’s a small machine clipped to the tip of her left middle finger. (Isn’t that for monitoring someone’s pulse?)

To her right, once she manages to look right, is a girl in a similar situation. Tattletale. Regent’s other. Captive. (Play thing.) Tattletale’s hooked up to even more machines than she is, nearly covered by them, and not moving in the slightest.

“So” Comes a voice from her left, “Were you in control when you shoved bugs down my throat?”

She tries to look left, she really does, and she gets halfway there with her neck before remembering she should be moving her waist too. It’s too late though, and a muscle is pulled, resulting in a shooting pain in the back of her neck and another strangled gasp as she falls backwards, landing wrong on two fingers of her left hand.

Snap

She’s still struggling to scream when the heavy steps return accompanied by another, heavier, step. The words that are being said are difficult to make out over the pain. It’s nothing compared to what that woman with the bombs did, but that pain was shared. He was interested in it, feeling her pain, feeling. Other things she felt. And this pain was only hers. (He played with people as a small child might play with ants— fascinated by responses to different cages.)

Eventually she makes out the word ‘Morphine’ and the pain begins to fade. She’s greeted with three people surrounding her bed, and she’s almost surprised that she recognizes them. In front of her is Armsmaster, to his left is Gallant, and to his right is Clockblocker. 

“Skitter.”

She jerks her head at an angle.

“I’m going to make this very simple. Were you ever in the Undersiders out of your own free will?” 

“Nguh”

“Nnuh”

“Nno” she finally manages to answer.

He looks to his left, and Gallant nods. “I’m very sorry that this happened to you. Is there anyone we can contact for you?” He asks.

She does cry this time, as after one failed attempt she manages to say, “My dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm surprised I managed to keep to it, but like I said, every two weeks! Right after I posted the last chapter, I got a full time job, so I will try to keep to this schedule, but, if I fail, at least y'all will know why.


End file.
